Almost Caught Up

Wednesday was my regular rest day.

Thursday Stats, 05/06
Distance: 4.27 mi.
Time: 55:38 min.
Pace: 13:02 min/mi.
Time of day: 4:15 p.m.
Temperature: 79°F, sunny and very warm

Back in mid-April The Love and I were in Chicago. The first night we were there The Love's car was hit while parked. The trunk became the back seat. Thank goodness no one was hurt in the accident. So for the last almost-month his car has been in the repair shop in Chicago. We are down to the final days. You know, the days when every afternoon you hear the repair shop lady say, "I'm sorry. We didn't get your car finished today. We hope it will be ready tomorrow." We've heard this every day for the last week.

How does the car story tie into my running? The Love & I thought we would be heading to Chicago on Friday to pick up the car. So I decided to run on Thursday and sacrifice my strength training if need be. As it turned out, of course the car isn't ready. And in true maddening fashion, the car repair lady didn't call until I had already started my run.

So now let me whine about my run. It was awful! It was worse than my first 7-mile run where I performed poorly. That time I was tired and slow. I can deal with tired and slow. Yesterday involved annoying aches and pains. So let's start at the bottom and work up.

My feet hurt with almost every step. I don't think my shoes were tied to tight. I actually checked them as I waited for a green light to cross the street. But something was clearly not right. It wasn't an acute, sharp pain; the darn feet just ached with every step. I did stop running and walked for a short time and that allowed me to push on and finish the course running. I can't help wondering if the weird way my left shoe has worn down has something to do with this.

My ankles and calves were so tight. (I know that isn't proper grammar and/or sentence structure, but it's the best way to describe the issue.) I was at mile 3.5 before my calves relaxed. I could not get into any kind of rhythmic breathing. I panted most of the way. And to top it all off, I forgot to put on my sweatband and salty sweat dripped in my eyes for much of the run. For the last 3/4 mile my mantra became, "one foot in front of the other". I'm telling ya', it was a bad run.

But now that I've captured it here, I'm putting it out of my mind!